It’s time for find the funny Friday. I haven’t written a blog in a bit because I’ve been busy with “Inside the River.” I got some amazing advice about the book. The simple version is that if it’s ultimately Emma’s story, then Emma and not Ana has to be the beginning part.
So I’m in the midst of a restructure. It feels good. And the funny is that when you think you’re done, it may only be the beginning. There’s no end game.
xoxo
Procrastination is a find the funny Friday because we all tend to do the most outrageous things instead of the task at hand. These are a few of the things that I do when I sit down to write and don’t write:
I speak whatever I had recently written in a strange, almost slavic accent
My nails suddenly need to be cut to perfection
Tea needs to be made and then more tea and more tea and sometimes I do a weird dance while making it
I need to look at all forms of social media and scroll down and keep scrolling
I think about weird things that need to be googled immediately: this new frog species, what is a black hole (I google that a lot and still can’t grasp it), what is that amazing Margaret Atwood quote from one of her books about not wanting to know about someone’s past, all things Rumi, what is the temperature of Rome in March, where is Sean Connery now?
I pace around my apartment and do some more weird dancing
I call Aetna again and fight with them
I tap my feet to the Cher song, do you believe in love
I start to write…
What are some funny things you do?
xoxo
Time is a funny thing when looking back on it:
When I was a teenager, I talked on the phone with my friends for hours every night, twisting the phone cord into knots as I paced my room. Now I text in phrases and can’t imagine what we could have spoken about for so long.
When I was younger, if something embarrassing happened, I swore I would never go to school again…now when I bump into someone from my past, it takes me a long time to remember who they are.
When I was growing up, there were no cell phones, GPS, or computers (I went to college with a fancy typewriter). Atari had come out, and music was on records and cassettes. I had a Sony walkman and we had a CB in the car–my handle was Snow White.
When I was younger, I used a lot of hairspray and wore a lot of make-up and pretended to be older and wiser. Now I hardly wear make-up, and never use hairspray, and am comfortable in always coming from a beginners mind, and know that wisdom is not knowledge, but compassion.
When I was younger, I listened to the lyrics of songs and books and poetry and felt it explode inside of me. I wanted to write a story that mattered, and kept my ideas on scraps of paper and half filled up journals.
Funny, how some things never change…
xoxo
Here we go, second Friday of “Find the Funny Fridays.” Sometimes we take life too seriously…and laughter seriously works.
When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.–Albert Einstein
A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.–Steve Martin
Out of all the lies I’ve told, “Just Kidding!” is my favorite. –unknown
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.–Winnie the Pooh
I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.– William Shakespeare
I’m sorry, if you were right, I’d agree with you. –Robin Williams
Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back. –Oscar Wilde
Beauty isn’t worth thinking about; what’s important is your mind. You don’t want a fifty-dollar haircut on a fifty-cent head.
— Garrison Keillor
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
— Mark Twain
Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
— Erma Bombeck
And finally…Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.
— George Carlin
xoxo
This is my new thing…Find the Funny Fridays!
I think it’s so important to find the funny whenever and wherever you can…especially if you can laugh at yourself, knowing that we all fall, fumble, and fail sometimes. It is especially helpful while staying positive as I try to find an agent for my book!
Here’s my first funny post:
My family used to go away on vacations with another family. One December we went to Acapulco. I was in the throes of puberty, some phase of curving and carving myself out towards womanhood (I think around 11 or 12 maybe). It was a beautiful day; all the days were completely, and at times relentlessly, without clouds. I was swimming in the pool with my friends (if you read this, Nussbaum ladies, you know who you are) and got out of the water to sit on the side of the pool.
Now, let me backtrack and say that I have always had some degree of awful eyesight. So, to swim and cool off under the hot, Mexico sun, I had to take my contacts out.
And now, I continue with my funny, sitting on the side of the pool. My friends were on the other side and gesturing to me with large waves of their hands. I, squinted my eyes and waved back, matching their waves with large waves of my own. They continued gesturing and I continued gesturing back. I guess, after a certain amount of time, time enough for them to realize that I was not understanding their quiet attempt to help me, they had to finally scream out, “Your bathing suit is off!”
I looked down and my bikini top was floating in the water.
I found the funny…maybe not at that moment but pretty soon after.
What’s your funny? (PS I just googled FTFF and I apologize…not what I wanted to say…kept it because it’s FUNNY)
xoxo
insidetheriver 